Mod idea/suggestion: BP1-in-BGEE

Thus just occurred to me: might it not be pretty simple to incorporate BP1 into BGEE? As something simikar

Here's a really basic idea: add the BP1 tavern to the Ulgoth town, to sort of mark this out as "TotSC-level" content. Make it exclusive with having Baeloth in the party - disable access to the inn if you take Baeloth into your party, and vice-versa disable taking Baeloth into your party if you have gone to the inn before talking to him. Then just make it basically like TotLM is in IWD: you get teleported from the inn to BP1, you fight your way through it, and then get teleported back. And then continue on your adventure.

I think I read somewhere that Roxanne has incorporated BP1 into the Sandrah mod... but I thought I saw her express dissatisfaction with the level of integration... maybe she'd consider spinning it off as an independent mod? (You're allowed to make more than one mod Roxanne! ) She certainly has the skills to do an excellent job, and it might not be that much work at all.

but I thought I saw her express dissatisfaction with the level of integration.

This is what I did:

I chose a tavern in Waterdeep as the starting point - for similar reasons: the party would be at sufficient level (5-7) but the final battles would still be challenging. Waterdeep is mentioned by Baeloth within the pits a number of times. Additionally, the Undermountain nearby is a place where such an arena could be located. Ulgoth's Beard would appear forced from a storyline point of view. That view of course is my personal taste.

The entrance only is accessible if Baeloth is not in the party. You enter with your BG1 party, (equipment and all) and leave again with that party when you finished.

The issue about integration has two aspects

- once you entered the pits, you have to finish them to get out again. Otherwise the pit's *plot* would need to get changed but I could think of no plausible way to explain such a *trick*. You get caught and fight to get out, that is straight forward.

- without changing the *internals* of BP, you come out with a lot of extra XP which may unbalance the rest of the game.

In my version, I removed the extra XPs upon return from the pits. Still, you can exploit this part to get one extra level (on average) for your party members. You retain this level and just need more time thereafter to reach the following level.

Ingredients:

-create a transition area and an entrance in the first pit area

-adjust a couple of BP1 scripts to maintain your party and equipment intact

-adjust a few dialogues to fit into the story

-adjust the leaving dialogue and transition scripts to get back to main game.

(-I added some party dialogues within the pits to make that episode more a part of the game, that again is storytelling)

That can be seen as proof of concept, so someone who wants to do that outside of EET/Sandrah will have no problem to do something similar. Testing is takes more time than coding, you have to go through all the pit fights after all...

Roxanne, the way you have done it seems excellent. I would only have two suggestions:

1) the obvious and simple solution to the XP issue is to simply remove all quest XP rewards from the Black Pits. Since you would enter it already at higher level than normal for BP1, they aren't needed. Monster XP could be retained, of course, and players can adjust that to their like through any number of XP mods.

2) I just don't see, story-wise what it has to do with Sandrah or why it would be dependent on her. Why not release it as a standalone mod for players who may not have access to Waterdeep in their games? And then the Sandrah mod could simply move the door to the tavern from Ulgoth's Beard to Waterdeep - because that does indeed make more sense, as long as Waterdeep is actually accessible to the player.

Roxanne, the way you have done it seems excellent. I would only have two suggestions:

1) the obvious and simple solution to the XP issue is to simply remove all quest XP rewards from the Black Pits. Since you would enter it already at higher level than normal for BP1, they aren't needed. Monster XP could be retained, of course, and players can adjust that to their like through any number of XP mods.

2) I just don't see, story-wise what it has to do with Sandrah or why it would be dependent on her. Why not release it as a standalone mod for players who may not have access to Waterdeep in their games? And then the Sandrah mod could simply move the door to the tavern from Ulgoth's Beard to Waterdeep - because that does indeed make more sense, as long as Waterdeep is actually accessible to the player.

1) I have looked into this already before. The issue is that in EET installs you can either play BP as an own campaign or integrated in the game. Changing XP (and gold rewards) would require a second version of BP. It can be done but it is hard to justify the extra effort. After all, BP is really dumb arena fight after arena fight, no plot, no surprises, nothing.

2) You can always include the Sandrah mod into your install without taking her into the party. You can either put your guy into Ulgoth's Beard with a little dialogue that transports the party there or you just do C:MoveToArea("CVELT3") and talk to the innkeeper.

It is the essence of EET to make the game one continuous adventure, If at all, access the BP fits into that concept. For me it makes little sense to create such capability once again for other games. (I am not even sure if that is technically possible for e.g. BGEE at all? Is BP a part of BGEE or a separate campaign?)

"Changing XP (and gold rewards) would require a second version of BP."

Couldn't a global variable be set if you go through the new door - or, if the PC is higher than level one in the starting tavern - and just make the quest XP rewards conditional on that variable being zero?

"Changing XP (and gold rewards) would require a second version of BP."

Couldn't a global variable be set if you go through the new door - or, if the PC is higher than level one in the starting tavern - and just make the quest XP rewards conditional on that variable being zero?

Setting a global is one thing.

But you need to define what the effects are if the global is set and if it is not set. This means you need to extend all the scripts and dialogues that give rewards to handle the case that the global is set. ("A second version...*).

There's a scripted quest XP reward after each fight, no? And how many fights are there - a dozen or so? Not that many. Should be easy enough to simply add an IF condition to each of those particular scripted XP awards... then if the variable is not set (if you are playing BP1 as its own campaign, from level 1) you will get XP as normal. But if the variable is set (you enter the tavern at level 5 or whatever) the XP awards won't fire.

Yeah but you need to then summon monsters that actually give normal XP, not ones that don't.

Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit).
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.

Hello! I was going through loads of old threads and spotted this one, and it excited me quite a bit! As for the exp problem mentioned above, one could work out the actual exp value of the creatures fought in the black pits for each tier, and replace the exp you gain each tier with this new number. Allow an option on install to choose to reduce the percentage the same way as those other mods would the rest of the game, or perhaps a way to detect if someone is using an exp reducer. - i don't know enough about modding to tell if that'd work or not, but it makes sense to me! Might be a lot of work?

I like the idea of this taking place in waterdeep, and made me think this could potentially tie in with IWDinEET. For instance, on travelling to IWD (presumably by boat) you have the choice of stopping in Waterdeep, perhaps a storm is brewing making you cautious about continuing straight to IWD, so you make port in waterdeep and go to the closest Inn, BOOM Baeloths got ye. After completing the blackpits Baeloth appears like he normally would, but in waterdeep! Next up off we go to IWD to destory some orcs with an OP'd evil drow sorcerer! The dale wont know what hit them.